FARMERS AND POLITICS

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 229, 30 October 1930, Page 4

FARMERS AND POLITICS

— I As a rneans of meeting ihe difficulties created by reduced prices and general depression the New Zealand larmers' Union proposes to initiate sonie sorfc of political campaign, a binfc of wliich. was dropped at a meeting of the executive yesierday. Tbe exact form the i campaign will take has not been revealed, for after dlscussing the subject in general terms tbe executive went into committee, emerging two bours later with the announcement that a committee kad been appointed to prepare plans for an immediate campaign. If the form to be taken by the campaign is still concealed from tbe public, there is no secrecy abouts its objects, chief of which, as Mr Adam Hamilton, hU.P. for Wallace, expressed it, is to reduce tbe adverse disparity between the cost of production and the return for the commodities produced. This was sbown by i\Ir Hamilton to be the difference between a 60 per cent. increase on

tbe pre-war cost of production and ! a 15 per cent. increase on the prewar return for rural produots. On these figures the position of the farmer is unbnviable, but if it so happened that pre-war figures sbowed a heavy disparity of returns over the cost of production the present position could still conceivably he in the farmer 's favour. If it gets down to a basis of certified figures, the Farmers' Union will have no difficulty in persuading the people of the Dominion that the lot of the farmer at the present tinie is an unhappy one. But when it has accomplished that it will still have a eonsiderable amount to do. The general publie on whose votes the IJnion will have to rely for its uolitical camnaipn mav rp.nl f.Tiat

. , - - £ o — — r*v tue plight of farmers is no worse than th^ plight of otker sections of the pubilic. If the Union cannot command the support of the general non-farming public it will have to face the monumental task of organising the farmers, of persuading them to speak politicallv with one voice, instead of several. It will find that task a problem of great difficulty. When the country was prosperous and the farmer was happy in the excellent prices he was obtaining for wool and butterfat, his political sympathies were fairly steady. Now that prices have fallen, and Government after Government has been unable to find an immediate remedy for the ills of the man on the land, he is wayward and uncertain in his allegiances. ; Attempts made to or£ranise the

farmers into a political force are a record of many failures. The Country Party, promoted in high .hopes, is represented in the present Par- . liament by the solitary voice of Captain Bushworth, crying in the wilderness. Of the many farmers in Parliament to-day, some are Beformers, some are Liberals and some are independent. Even Messrs Polson and Hamilton, who seem destined to lead the new crusade, cannot see eye to eye politically. Mr Polson, indeed, climbed into Parliament across the political corpse of that most earnest worker for the farmer, Mr J. Walter, of Stratford, whom he defeated at the last election. Since his political career began he has been taken to task by several diff'erent branches of the Palmers' Union for what has been termed misrepresentation of the farmers' point of view. The history of Mr Polson's political activitie's thus shows that farmers cannot dictate to Mr Polson any more than Mr PoJson can dictate to farmers. In that case how is he going to obtain support for his latest campaign? If the farmers could speak politically through farmer represeniatives it seems strange that Mr Coates, the head of the last Government, or Mr Forbes and Mr Eansom, the strongest figures in the present one, all three of whom are farmers, could not have stated their requirements. The truth is that the Government now in power is as fully alive to the diffieulties faced by the farmers, and as eager to shape measures for relief, as Ihe Farmers' Union itself. But the troubles of farmers are mainly due to the slow movement ot' economic rather than political forces, and hy the slow movement of economic forces they will he rigbted. If the Farmers' Union hopes by a political gesture to improve the situation, and gladden tlie hearts of its memhers, it has as tnuch prospect of suceess as klr Polson has of heing the ncxt Prime Minister.